ALL COMEDY IS CONSERVATIVE:

I met Nazar Romanchenko in 2018, when I was living in Lutsk, Ukraine with my girlfriend, where she'd been placed on a Fulbright Fellowship. I was a member of the one coworking space in town, a new building that stood out in a post-industrial district by the river, and Nazar was the office manager. During coffee breaks in the kitchen, he would tell me Ukrainian jokes, often paired with a brief history lesson. My favorite, which I later used for my novel, Calling Ukraine, goes like this:

When God created Eastern Europe, he carved from the earth three hulking nations: a dull gray valley called Germany, an endless white tundra called Russia, and, between the two, a bursting field of yellow flowers called Ukraine.

When the Ukrainian people saw their new home, they could not believe their good fortune. They walked the fertile fields marveling at the richness of the soil, breathing in the crisp air of the Carpathian Mountains, and staring out in awe at the glimmering Black Sea. They looked to the dull German valleys to the west and the barren Russian plains to the east, and then back at the Eden in which they were going to get to spend their lives.

They said to God, "What have we done to deserve such bounty? What have we done to deserve such good fortune? Why have you blessed us with such riches?"

And God said to the Ukrainians, "Let me introduce you to the neighbors."

In the early days of Russia's brutal invasion, when I was back in the United States, Nazar would send me videos of rockets hitting apartment buildings. I would toggle between rage, grief, and deep worry for all the friends and colleagues who had chosen to stay. He and I messaged about questions of safety, information on missile strikes, and how to get funds to grassroots defense and humanitarian groups.

But it didn't take long for Nazar to start sneaking in jokes again. 

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